Ray was looking for a job, but jobs are elusive things and hard to find where he lives. So he turned to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a service where users can perform small tasks that can’t be automated in return for small amounts of money that eventually add up. [More]

If you’re going to be goofing off on the Internet anyway, you might as well make some money at it, right? That’s how so many of us find ourselves doing tiny tasks using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in the wee hours of the morning. Reader Alex recently started using it, too. He’s built up a nice balance, which he would like to withdraw using his Amazon payments account. Only he can’t, because that account is a joint one with his ex-wife. Who he never added to his payments account, but might have had a wedding registry with long ago. Now Amazon has locked him out of his payments account entirely, and he can’t fix the situation. Hey, $75 is $75.

The one thing that’s missing? The fate of ethically-challenged dimwit Bayard (edit – and anyone at Belkin like him), who the Daily Background has since caught posting his own fraudulent reviews for Belkin.

Belkin Business Development Representative Michael Bayard has been caught offering to pay anyone willing to leave perfect reviews of Belkin products on Amazon, Buy.com, and Newegg. Even worse, the highly unethical strategy seems to have worked—almost fifteen pages worth of Belkin products on Amazon have perfect five-star ratings.